The Lab Safety Gurus
Discover the secrets to enhancing laboratory safety without the hassle of navigating complex regulations and modifying established practices.
Tune in to the enlightening discussions led by the knowledgeable Dan the Lab Safety Man and infectious disease behaviorist Sean Kaufman. Together, they explore a wide range of lab safety subjects on a weekly basis.
Stay up-to-date with the latest trends and engaging debates surrounding lab safety by tuning in to every episode.
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The Lab Safety Gurus
Risk and Responsibility in the Laboratory with Experts Dan Scungio and Sean Kaufman
Why do some scientists skirt the edge of safety in the pursuit of discovery? Join us, lab safety experts Dan Scungio and Sean Kaufman, as we unravel the complex psychology of risk-taking in the laboratory, examining how personal thresholds for danger can lead to a dicey dance with the potentially hazardous. Our discussion illuminates the mysterious force that pushes individuals to breach protocol, even when the risks are glaringly apparent. We probe into the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time that has starkly redefined our collective understanding of risk, and how this has shifted behaviors and protocols within the scientific community.
Venturing further into the realm of controversy, we passionately deliberate the ethics of virus research, particularly the genetic alteration of viruses to simulate pandemics. We shed light on the global repercussions of such scientific gambles, advocating for innovative alternatives like artificial intelligence which promise to lower these existential stakes. As we close the conversation, we encourage our peers in the field of laboratory safety to engage in a profound self-inquiry about their own risk thresholds, underscoring the imperative to harmonize personal and organizational safety values to champion the most rigorous safety standards in our laboratories.
Welcome to the Lab Safety Guru's Podcast. I'm Dan Scungio.
Speaker 2:And I'm Sean Kaufman, and together we're providing safety insights for those working in laboratory settings, doing safety.
Speaker 1:Together. Sean Kaufman, I have a question for you. Uh-oh, what you got, dan. Okay, you're riding an elevator in a tall, tall building and you get up to about the I don't know 44th floor and the elevator stops. You're alone in the elevator, but the door opens and you suddenly learn that the top 10 floors of the building they haven't really finished construction on it, but the elevator went all the way up Uh, the door's open. Are you gonna go to the door and look down and see how high up you are, or are you just gonna stay in the back of?
Speaker 2:the elevator. Hey Dan, I'm afraid of heights. I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying in the elevator. Yeah, I'm not going anywhere. My palms were already sweating, you know, when you were describing this situation.
Speaker 1:I have no idea if you're afraid of heights, but I thought it would be a good scenario. So here's a different question, Uh, very different, but we'll see. We'll see where you go with it. So, uh, the pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic, it just hits again. The world goes crazy. We kind of overdo it. Uh and uh, there it is in your town. The bugs are out, People are wearing masks, People are not really going out. Uh, and your wife says hey, Sean, I'd like to go out to dinner. I know of a restaurant that's still open. Uh, uh, would you go?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, dan, this is a loaded question, man. We should do. We should do a podcast just on what you just talked about. Um, so, dan, it it you know it depends. Um, it depends on a lot of things. Uh, what's my current health? Um, you know it may be one of my children are about ready to. Maybe I'm going to be a grandfather for the first time and I may be around a new grandson or a new granddaughter. Um, it depends it. Really. I would have to look at a lot of factors.
Speaker 1:Yes, that, and that's exactly what I'm looking for. So what I wanted to talk about today was just what I term acceptable risk. It's different depending on the situation.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I, and so I've been astounded, sean, when I, when I go into laboratories and I see people doing things you know not using the engineering control correctly, the biological safety cabinet or the you know the chemical fume hood or whatever it is, or not wearing gloves, or you know, and they're, and they're handling biological specimens. We're supposed to use standard precautions in a clinical laboratory where we treat everything as if it were infectious. We work in some infectious disease laboratories, public health laboratories, where we know we've got infectious items all over the place, but we still don't follow the rules and regulations. Why is it acceptable for some people? Why is it an acceptable risk? Is it a lack of education? Is it a lack of safety culture? Is it a lack of coaching? Is it a lack of leadership? Why is that acceptable risk? And here you know I mentioned COVID for a reason. You know.
Speaker 1:We had, uh, we had people in lots of different laboratories. It was a tough time to be a lab safety officer, I'll tell you, and I know it was tough everywhere during that pandemic, but I literally had employees calling me as the lab lab safety officer. Some of them are crying because they were so scared, and these are some of the same people who I'd seen a few months before with their cell phone on the counter in the biological laboratory, with them handling their earbud with their gloved hand. So they weren't worried about that risk, which you could catch hepatitis much more easily that way than you know. Then all of a sudden something new, novel and unknown was there and they were far more worried about that when their risk of doing that was less if they would have just followed all the general safety rules. So again.
Speaker 1:I know, that's a little loaded because I'm throwing COVID in there, but but it it changed people's perception of acceptable risk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree, I, you know it's. It's funny, dan. The construct of this acceptable risk is like pleasant disappointment. It's like it has this, it has this connotation to it. Look, I. So I look at it, you know, again, from a behavioral standpoint, I see there are three things that that that that determine acceptable risk for individuals. The first is the amount of risk somebody's willing to tolerate, the risk tolerance levels that that it that varies from person to person. Another consideration individually is you know, maybe, how they perceive risk. Some individuals perceive, you know, a risk that you know new things, for example their experiences. You know they don't have much experience with something, so it's a greater perception of risk than somebody who's worked around something for a long time. So we know tolerance of risk and perception of risk is an individual aspect that's going to determine whether a risk is acceptable or not. But there's something also very strange, dan. This is real. Get ready, for this is bizarre.
Speaker 2:And you open it up with this but risk appetite is an individual thing as well. Believe it or not, the amount of risk that that a person is is is. You know, that's different than tolerance. Tolerance is what someone's comfortable with or willing to accept, but risk appetite is where they where. If you've got a goal in mind, it's what you're willing to to actually take to accomplish that goal, and and and that is. These are all individual aspects and this is why an organization Dan, in my opinion, has to, you know, not only be aware of the regulatory requirements that are bound by state or federal or even local ordinances, but an organization has to implement risk management strategies to to control for these individual aspects, but also and this is critical they've got to do a cost-benefit analysis, a risk-benefit analysis. They've got to take a look at what is the risk of not controlling these three individual perspectives versus writing a standardized process, putting in risk management strategies. Because when we talk about acceptable risk, who determines what is and what is not acceptable?
Speaker 1:Well, the regulatory bodies that determine that for you, if you have a question about that well, yeah, but do we, do we listen to speed limits?
Speaker 2:Well no, you can't just throw everything out regularly. Come on, how many standards does OSHA have? And really truly, does everybody know all those OSHA standards and is everybody in full compliance? Or do we wait until an accident happens and then we're, like you, violated OSHA?
Speaker 1:No, but I guess I think psychologically, maybe, when we're teaching or orienting somebody to the laboratory and talking about safety and also ongoing safety education, a lot of it has to do with consequences. This is what could happen if you don't do this, and so we're working more on the psychological aspect of personal risk acceptance rather than regulatory. Yeah, you're right, because I could know all the rules forward and backward. It doesn't mean I'm going to follow them if I don't think I need to.
Speaker 1:And I've had medical directors and doctors and PhDs tell me, oh, even though it's regulation, oh, if I put my hand down on this counter and then rub my eye, really what are the chances of virus is going to get in my eye? And actually doctors say that to me. So their risk acceptance for the real world was different than what the regulations say. For sure, so yeah regulations isn't as big a player.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you know again, I think that you know I always like to go back to the family structure because I believe in it. A parent will set the tone for three things for children the risk tolerance, the risk appetite and the risk perception, at least inside the house. And you know now, when the child leaves the house the child may have a difference of individual perspective, but when rules are established for the common good of everyone in the home, it really doesn't matter if your risk appetite is high and somebody else's risk appetite is low. If you've got a set of risk management strategies that you're going to hold people accountable for or accountable to, then at least when they're within the laboratory or within the organization, their behavior should be quite similar to one another. I mean, you know, even though they may have different risk perceptions and risk tolerances and risk appetites, the reality is that they should be controlled by risk management strategies that are thought out and carefully planned. That way, acceptable risk becomes a organizational commitment rather than an individual one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's what we need to see happen more in laboratories and for those who run the safety program, because I still see in labs that I work in, in labs that I audit or consult with, I still see variation in behavior. It's great variation and it tells me that the individual's risk acceptability levels are different. For whatever the reason, is it because there isn't a good safety structure in the laboratory? Is it because there's no oversight? Is it because there's no knowledge about possible consequences? Or there are just nobody, there are no SOPs? I mean there are a variety of reasons. You know one thing. You know when people do something that I don't expect or that's not right, I know that there are several sources of influence on that behavior and I don't know what any of those may be Until I get to know the person, talk to them about it. But a lab manager, a lab leader, isn't necessarily going to have time to do all of that every time they see something going wrong with safety in their laboratory.
Speaker 2:Well, hey, Dan, I've got questions for you. Let me ask a couple of questions. This may go, this may go.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about acceptable risk.
Speaker 2:First let's start with. Let's go through the realm of our listeners. You've got people out there that do diagnostic capabilities. That are heroes. We're going to talk about our laboratory. Is it acceptable risk to human health to have a healthy individual collect or work with a sample from somebody who could be sick with a very lethal disease? Is that acceptable risk To determine what that person is sick with? That you should take a healthy human being and let them play with a sample from a sick patient. Is that acceptable risk and why?
Speaker 1:That's a loaded question, it is, so is that person who's doing the testing is PPE and let's assume for all of this, let's assume that an organization has determined great risk management strategies.
Speaker 2:I'm going to ask in three realms because I think this is something we have to answer. Laboratoryans are heroes. They are the unseen heroes. You have people in hospitals that get samples that are collected from doctors and nurses, and doctors and nurses wait to hear from the laboratoryans on what they're going to do for treatment. Absolutely, and they're heroes. They don't ever get any credit for this Exactly. But let me ask straight up You've got all the safety aspects implemented. Is it acceptable risk, because you can't eliminate all risk? But is it acceptable risk to tell a healthy human being to play with a sick human being sample so that we can determine what they have, so we can treat them? Is that acceptable risk? Do you think that's something we can do? Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you. I have to say yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, let me ask you this. Let's say you're a public health laboratory and you have diseases coming in from the outside it could be outbreaks or they could be within animal populations and you're taking a healthy human being and you're asking them to play with potentially lethal diseases in a public health field to determine what's happening in a community. Is that acceptable risk? Yes, okay, let me ask you this. Then Get ready. This is the big one. This is the controversial one. Is it acceptable risk to take a virus, genetically modify it and put it into animals to see how a pandemic could play out? Is that an acceptable risk?
Speaker 1:I don't think so. Yeah, we only have a minute and a half left.
Speaker 2:But this is the debate that's happening right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for research. My personal opinion on that is no. I think that we could, when you could potentially put the world in danger, which we've seen happen. No, because there must be, in this day and age, other ways to do that Play it out using AI or something but there must be better ways, safer ways to do that. I have to say no for me.
Speaker 2:Well, dan, I love that, because when we talk about defining acceptable risk, it really is the level of risk at which an organization or an individual, or maybe even, dan, maybe the world. Maybe this is a question that we ask the world, because when we talk about diagnostic and public health acceptable risk you're right, it's very different than if we're trying to create something that may allow us to stay ahead but could potentially put us at risk. I don't know. I think it's a question that each and every one of us should ask, and maybe that the world has a chance to answer for themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, and that's something that could affect the whole world. So if you're dealing with lab safety, if you're listening to this and you feel like you're on the 44th floor looking down and there's nothing past the elevator, stay in the back, close the door, hit the down button and get somewhere where the risk is acceptable for you and for the people in your laboratory.
Speaker 2:We are the Lab Safety Guru's Dan Scungill and Sean Kaufman.
Speaker 1:Thank you for letting us do lab safety together.